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It loomed large in the bars of Cuba and Key West, the salons of Paris, the noisy war zones of Italy and Spain, the quiet mountains of Idaho. But to some people, his 20 summers in Michigan molded his life.

“It became a part of his nature,” said George Colburn, the former East Lansing councilman who's finishing a Hemingway documentary. “It was the good part, the fun part.”

It's the part that turned a near-sighted suburbanite, a doctor's kid, into a rugged outdoors man and novelist.

“This is where he learned how to fish and hunt,” said Paul Marcus, the marketing director for Colburn's film. “It brought the seminal moments in his life.”

And, yes, it was where he started to write.

“He decided he was going to be the best writer the world has ever known,” said Fernanda Dau Fisher, whose grandmother was a friend of Hemingway’s.

By many accounts, he achieved that. That explains the fresh attention to a man who died 55 years ago:

•“The Hemingway Play” is being performed at Riverwalk Theatre, imagining a merger of four versions of Hemingway – author, adventurer, soldier, personality.

•A Hemingway statue, financed by Fisher's late father, is planned for Petoskey. If all goes well, it will be unveiled July 21, the 118th anniversary of Hemingway's birth, with Colburn debuting his film.

•And people still travel the world in search of Hemingway's roots. “To me, he was the truest writer there's ever been,” said Kevin Smith, an Arkansas insurance agent.

Smith has been to other locations in Hemingway’s life – Paris, Cuba, Italy. He also found a private cottage near Walloon Lake, south of Petoskey, where the famous author spent his boyhood summers.

Ernie Mainland, Hemingway's nephew, lives there and keeps it off the radar. There's a historic-landmark plaque, but it's indoors, away from public view. Still, it can be helpful.

There was the time Mainland was putting in a new deck rail; the inspector said the posts had to be closer, so kids wouldn't get their heads stuck in them. “I told him, 'Well, I guess the Hemingway kids were bright enough to not get their heads stuck,'” he recalled.

Then he showed him a piece of the original rail, plus that plaque. The inspector relented.

And yes, this cottage really is historic. “Without the first 20 summers he spent here, he would have been a very different person,” Colburn said. “He would have been a suburban kid who took holidays.”

On the surface, Hemingway grew up in “a world of Victorian values, Protestant ethics and middle-class values,” wrote biographer Verna Kale (“Ernest Hemingway,” Reaktion Books, 2016).

In the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, his father was a serious sort who loved science, gathered artifacts, suffered from depression, and, when Ernest was 28, committed suicide.

But his life was shaped by other factors:

•His mother was a voice teacher, trained as an opera singer, and more. “My grandmother was a very good artist,” said Mainland, who has some gorgeous paintings to prove that. She stuffed the home with books, heavy on the classics; she “made sure all the children had an artistic side,” he said.

•Then there were those Michigan summers, which were do-it-yourself time. Hemingway's mom even had her own cabin, across the lake, where she created her artworks. The kids were free to wander.

As the 20th century began, nature was a powerful draw. “That's why people came here,” said Chris Struble, president of the Michigan Hemingway Society. “To get away from the city and get fresh air.”

Ernest was six weeks old in 1898, when the family arrived to look at its newly purchased property and plan a cottage. They were back the next summer, in a simple, 20-by-40 foot structure with hand-pumped water, wood-burning stove and outhouse. The cook slept in the kitchen, Mainland said.

Extra rooms were added later, but the cottage retains its simple, natural feel. For young Hemingway, it was a departing point. “In Michigan's forests and streams, he spent hours – very often alone,” Michael Federspiel wrote in “Picturing Hemingway's Michigan” (2010, Wayne State University Press).

It was ideal for an observer who would become a writer.

When his parents urged college, Hemingway resisted. Using a family connection, he landed a cub-reporter job. Part of his writing style “came from the rules of the Kansas City Star,” Mainland said.

That was the style that emerged in his writing: His stories had depth, but they were delivered in the punchy style of a newspaper or of a Midwestern bar.

At times, Michigan was also the setting. “If you read the Nick Adams stories, you know where he came from,” Mainland said.

His stories expanded as he saw the world.

Hemingway was teen-aged ambulance driver in World War I. He returned home, recovered from wounds and spent time in Petoskey working on his writing, Toronto and Chicago, where he met his first wife.

They married in Michigan and he rowed across the lake to the cottage, where they spent their wedding night. Soon, they were in Paris, living off her trust fund and his free-lance stories. The Michigan years had ended, “but they were always a part of him,” Colburn said.

And his history became a part of Petoskey. Now there are plaques around the city. There's that cottage, which Hemingway had always promised to his younger sister Sunny. When Hemmingway died, said Mainland (Sunny's son), “she couldn't believe that he didn't leave a will.”

No problem; she phoned Hemingway's widow, who said yes, he'd always wanted her to have the place.

So Mainland spent part of his childhood there. He sold real estate and dug through the past. “I feel like I'm an archeologist,” he said.

Some parts of the past are more obvious than others, including the sign that Sunny wrote on the outhouse: “Ernest Hemingway sat here.”

He sat in many Michigan places. He also fished, hunted and communed with nature and people. He changed from a standard suburbanite to ... well, Ernest Hemingway.

Hemingway everywhere

On stage

“The Hemingway Play” at Riverwalk Theatre, Jan. 12-15, 19-22

Tickets at www.riverwalktheatre.com; most days are $15, $12 for students, seniors (age 55 and up) and military; Thursdays are $10 and $8.

The documentary

George Colburn hopes to show the feature-length (90-minute) version of the film during the Hemingway birthday celebration, July 21 in Petoskey

After that, he plans to have a version (probably 60 minutes) for public TV.

The statue

Funded by the late Robert Dau, whose mother was a friend of Hemingway, it's from award-winning Gladstone sculptor Andy Stacksteder, from a photo of Hemingway at 20, in Petoskey.

Tentastive plans call for it to be dedicated on July 21.

The tour

Plaques in the Petoskey area mark places Hemingway knew. That includes a favorite bar (now the City Park Grill), restaurant (Jesperson's) and store (Horton Bay General Store). Also: The rooming house where he tried to write, the former library where he spoke about his war experiences and the Perry Hotel, where he stayed one night for 75 cents.

The books

•There have been many books about Hemingway, including the two quoted here. Verna Kale's “Ernest Hemingway” (2016, Reaktion Books) is a relatively concise account of a sprawling life; “Picturing Hemingway's Michigan” (2010, Wayne State University Press) is strong in photos of the family and of Northern Michigan a century ago.

•“The Letters of Ernest Hemingway” (Cambridge University Press) has released the third of what is projected to be 17 volumes. The first goes through 1922 (when Hemingway turned 23), including the Michigan years; the second is from 1923-5, the Paris years; the third is 1926-9.

•Then there are the nine Hemingway novels (including “The Sun Also Rises,” “A Farewell to Arms,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “The Old Man and the Sea”) and collections of short stories and poems, many assembled after his 1961 death. “The Nick Adams Stories” (1972) is strong in Michigan flavor.